Developing a Personal Librarian Program for Transfer Students and Other At-Risk Groups

Helene Lafrance, Head of Research and Outreach Shannon Kealey, Science Librarian

Santa Clara University Library

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What is a Personal Librarian Program?

“A flexible concept that focuses on customizing

information literacy by establishing a one-on-one

relationship between librarian and student from

enrollment through graduation”.

Moniz, Richard and Jean Moats, eds. The Personal Librarian: Enhancing the Student Experience. Chicago, ALA Editions, 2014.

What’s different about our program?

● Target specific groups

● Boutique program - focus on the “personal” aspect ○ Personalized emails○ Effort to meet with each student○ Multiple emails each quarter

Selection of target groups

● Transfer Students○ Often have difficult time adapting socially and academically to a new

institution○ More diverse group (age, education, social background) with greater

need for support○ Miss out on library instruction sessions offered to entering freshmen○ Because they have declared a major, they can be assigned to a specific

subject librarian● Students on Academic Probation

○ Recommended by Academic Support Services● Selected group of international students

Goals/Objectives of program● Reach out to students who have traditionally fallen through the cracks in

terms of library instruction and who might be at risk of dropping out of college

● Build personal relationships with transfer students and students on academic probation that would last through their academic career at Santa Clara

● Increase the students’ information literacy skills

● Help students use librarians as a resource

Implementation Overview● Ran two pilot projects in winter and spring quarters 2015

○ 19 transfer students, winter 2015○ 30 students on academic probation, spring 2015

● Implemented full program in fall 2015○ 138 transfer students○ 33 students on academic probation

● Recruited 11 librarians (approx. 20 students each)

Implementation: Branding

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Implementation: Recording Statistics

Quantitative Assessment -- 156 Transfer Students

Inactive98 students63%

Active58 students37%

One Interaction38 students66%

2+ Interactions20 students34%

“Active” is defined as one or more interactions with a Personal Librarian, even if the student didn’t need reference or research help

Quantitative Assessment -- 63 Probation Students

Inactive52 students83%

Active11 students17%

One Interaction8 students73%

2+ Interactions3 students27%

“Active” is defined as one or more interactions with a Personal Librarian, even if the student didn’t need reference or research help

Comparison with Other Programs● Yale University: program for freshmen students. Only 10% contact their

personal librarians (“A higher yield and the program would not work”).● Univ. of Toronto: 970 graduate students, 4 emails sent by librarians, 243

emails in response per year● Brock University: 3,045 undergraduate. Few students respond to emails,,

but the email open rate is 72 (and click-through rate was 5%). In a follow-up survey, 79% of the students said the messages were helpful.

● Alfred University, NY: 503 freshmen students. In a survey, 22% of the students said they had contacted their personal librarian.

Qualitative Assessment - Librarian Survey

Qualitative Assessment - Librarian Survey

“Contacted all students as assigned, after initial meetings, only a few asked for help.”

“I have not had too many responses from my assigned students. I would feel better about it if they would contact me more frequently.”

Qualitative Assessment - Librarian Survey

“I think it’s a great program and very worth the investment….Though the response rate was low from my people, I had very good meetings with those I did meet with.”

“For those students who responded and came in to meet with me, our meetings were rewarding.”

Qualitative Assessment - Student Surveys

● Two different surveys--one for active (69) and one for inactive (150) students○ “Active” is defined as anyone who met with or emailed with their Personal

Librarian, even if they didn’t need reference or research help

● None of the inactive students responded to the survey

● 15 out of 69 of the active students responded to the survey (22%)

Qualitative Assessment: Student Survey

Not at all useful Extremely useful

Qualitative Assessment - Student Survey

“[My Personal Librarian] is wonderful: she always emails me to check up whenever I am about to email her! She is very helpful and finds information/teaches me to find information that I am completely lost on.”

“I really like the personal librarian program. I am a transfer student and when I was assigned my first research paper at Santa Clara I really liked the fact I had a specific person to contact. Not only that but she showed me all the databases that Santa Clara has to offer and how to use them.”

Preliminary Stats from Winter & Spring 2016Transfer students starting in winter 2016:Total: 66Active: 17 (21%)

Students on Academic Probation - Winter 2016Total: 49Active: 3 (6%)

International students in spring 2016Total: 38Active: 17 (45%)

Personal Librarian Pilot for International Students● Approximately 1200 students out of 7500

● Mostly graduate students in Business and Engineering

● Majority start in the fall; smaller groups start in the winter and spring quarter

● We reached out to 38 students who started in spring 2016

● High response rate indicates a need of more services for international students

Challenges and Lessons learned● Program may not work with all groups--rethinking academic probation

● We need to take into consideration librarians’ workload and keep them

motivated

● We need to maintain excellent relationships with other campus units to obtain

lists of students

● We need to improve the way we manage the program for it to be sustainable

● We need to drop non-responsive students after a while for the program to

remain sustainable

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What’s next?

● Assess the new pilot for international students, spring 2016 (current) quarter

● Complete assessment of the program at end of academic year and decide on

changes/improvements

● Improve the way we record and manage data, and other program logistics

○ Create a master calendar with email schedule for all groups

○ Use mail merge and possibly a marketing email software such as Vertical

Response or MailChimp

● Find new ways to motivate librarians participating in the program

Student Success Stories: Meet Maria Ilich

Student Success Stories: Meet Giannina Ong

Questions?

How would this program work at your institution?

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